


where you gonna sleep tonight

by Raven (singlecrow)



Category: The Big Bang Theory (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Community: trope_bingo, F/M, Gen, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-20
Updated: 2014-08-20
Packaged: 2018-02-13 18:17:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2160375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/singlecrow/pseuds/Raven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sheldon doesn't snap at him for his lack of precision, which is how he knows the end of the world is coming.</p>
            </blockquote>





	where you gonna sleep tonight

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the "AU: apocalypse" square on my trope_bingo card.

There are some odd lights in the sky the night Leonard goes out to find the pizza guy. The pizza place has apparently brought on new staff for fall semester and they're not used to Pasadena yet; at any rate, the guy called to find out where 2311 Los Robles was exactly and then made high-pitched noises that were audible halfway across the room when Sheldon tried to explain, and after he's been watching that happen for a while Leonard picks up his wallet and heads down the stairs. It's kind of warm tonight, too warm for September, and there's a restless energy in him; he grew up out east and he guesses there's something in him that's waiting for sweaters and scarves and frost.

Outside on the sidewalk, he looks up and down but can't see the pizza guy. And then car stops and the tinted window rolls down and the voice from within says, "Dr Hofstadter?"

"Yeah," Leonard says tentatively, taking a step back, and he's aware, suddenly, that he's the only person around, that there's no one hanging out on the building stoop, the passing cars Doppler-shifted and distant. He's about to say something frivolous and automatic about how Dr Hofstadter is his father, and actually also his mother, and his sister, when there are hands on his neck and wrists and something harsh and chemical-sweet under his nose, and then, nothing.

*

When he walks through the door of the apartment Bernadette is on the phone – "White, dark hair, wears glasses – yeah, he was wearing them when he disappeared – and, uh, short, really short, I mean, like, I could take him" – and everyone turns at his appearance except Sheldon, who stares down at the kitchen counter like he's inspecting it for bacterial cultures. 

"Leonard!" Penny runs up first. "What happened to you? The pizza guy came, he said he hadn't seen you, we couldn't – I mean, your phone was here, we thought… are you okay?"

"I'm fine," Leonard says, leaning against the door and closing his eyes. Slowly, he takes his wallet out of his back pocket and puts it back on the side table. "I'm fine, I just – I had to go somewhere."

"It's all right, officer," Bernadette's saying in the background, "no, he just..."

"Where?" Penny demands. "Where could you possibly have to go that was so important, without telling anyone? Bernadette called the cops…"

"Penny." That's Amy's voice cutting Penny off, Amy with her sharpest professional detachment. Leonard keeps his eyes closed. "He's been drugged."

"Drugged?" Penny says, high-pitched, and Leonard feels the world tilt. He shakes them all off somehow, their hands and their questions, and makes it to his room and shuts the door. He falls flat on top of the covers and sleeps for twelve hours and when he wakes up, goes straight to the window and presses his hands and face against the glass, looking up at the sky.

*

He gets to work the next day just fine, teaches a class of indifferent sophomores and in the afternoon, works on the design of an experimental protocol. At lunch he goes for a walk around campus, picks up an acorn from beneath a tree and throws it, absent-mindedly calculating the arc of the parabola of the thing as it rises and falls. Above him the clouds are clearing, leaving a great expanse of blue. 

When he gets home, Sheldon and Penny are having a conversation in the hallway and Leonard thinks it's sweet that they think they're whispering. "His behaviour is… puzzling," Sheldon is saying, and from her answering noise of surprise, Penny knows what an admission that is for him. "It's really quite fascinating, this kind of sudden, spontaneous aberration."

"Sheldon, this is not an experiment," Penny says sharply, "I'm really worried" – and then Leonard doesn't know what happens next, to stop her mid-sentence, but it's possible Sheldon gives her a hug. Wonders may never cease. Leonard flips open his laptop and pulls up the number for his therapist's office in downtown Pasadena and talks for a minute.

"He won't tell me what happened," Penny says, from the hallway, and Leonard mouths, _I can't_ , into the phone. "Yeah, that's right," he says out loud after another moment, "I'm done, I'm cured, no more talking" – and laughs, and that's sounding kind of manic but he doesn't care right now. "Look, I'm pretty sure I can just make that call. I've been in therapy since before you were born. No, really, if you were born after 1985 – look, just do it. Thank you."

"We could stage an intervention," Sheldon says from the hallway. "I'm not sure exactly how one stages an intervention. I could look it up on the internet" – and Leonard just stands there and keeps on laughing, because of course he could, ridiculous blessed Sheldon with his determination to do something, preferably peer-reviewed and hygienic and maybe in alphabetical order, but something.

"I have a better idea." Penny strides into the apartment like the wrath of God. "Leonard, honey, you're with me" – and she takes his hand and pulls him into the bedroom and throws him down. 

It takes Leonard a moment to understand – his bed, her hands on his wrists, pinning him to the sheets – but he gets it: he can safeword out of this. Like everything, it's a choice.

She asks: "What happened to you?"

He tells her.

*

Afterwards, Leonard sits down on the edge of the couch with his laptop perched on his knees and a CNN tab constantly open while Penny paces up and down along the back of it, and Sheldon paces perpendicularly in rhythm.

"How can you be so calm?" Penny says, not for the first time.

"Believe me, I'm not." Leonard gestures and nearly dislodges the computer. "I've just had longer to get used to it."

"I don't get it," Penny says. "If it wasn't going to work, then why did you…"

"I think they hoped it would." Leonard sighs. "It's all top-secret stuff because they thought they could just – fix it. Throw a nuke at it, spread some rumours about high-altitude weather balloons, and we could all go on with our lives. I think they kidnapped every experimental physicist who'd ever been on the US military payroll in the hope that one of them would tell them it would work. It won't."

"And now," Penny says, a note of hysteria creeping in, "an asteroid is going to hit the Earth. Like in _Armageddon_." 

"Except not," Leonard points out, "because the nuke thing. You know. Won't work."

"It'll land in the ocean," Sheldon says, suddenly, and although Leonard hasn't seen him do the math he believes him absolutely. "The middle of the Pacific."

"Tsunami," Leonard murmurs, and for a moment they're all three picturing it, the rise and rise of the water. "Sheldon, are you okay?"

Sheldon says, "They took you away." And maybe that wouldn't make sense to anyone else, but Sheldon lives his life according to a set of strictly quantifiable dependencies and being kidnapped when you go out to find the pizza guy just isn't one of them. It's the start of so much that's coming.

"It looks so quiet," Penny says, and finally stops pacing. She's looking out of the window, but unlike Leonard, she doesn't look up but down. "No one running screaming for the mountains, or whatever."

"No one needs to know, yet," Leonard says, and that's when Raj comes barrelling through the door and says:

"Leonard, you _know_ about this" – and Leonard abruptly remembers what Dr Rajesh Koothrappali, PhD Astrophysics, does for a living.

*

Penny goes to work in the morning. "I can't, just sit here," she says, kissing the top of Leonard's head as she looks for her keys, "and anyway if I don’t go I have to explain, and if I explain I have to lie, or I have to tell the truth, and I can't… I can't make that kind of decision, Leonard, I never even know what dessert I'm going to have."

Leonard is surprised to find he understands this perfectly. He says, "I love you" under his breath as she runs down the stairs, calls in sick and sits on the couch listening to CNN in a minimised window. He has not said to either Sheldon or Penny that they shouldn't, can't, mustn't tell anyone; he can't take on the moral weight of that.

Raj comes over mid-morning and says, a little desperately, "I was so afraid they were going to name it after me."

Leonard winces sympathetically. "How long have you known?"

"Long enough." Raj shakes his head. "I thought – maybe I should go home. To my parents. It's – it's a long way, maybe…"

Leonard nods, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. Last night he was thinking about New Jersey, about his childhood bedroom another four thousand miles from the mid-Pacific than here. He hasn't called his mother. 

"Priya," Raj is saying, "I should tell her at least, if I don't go back, so she'll know, so she might be able to – keep them safe."

"If you do go," Leonard says, "it will have to be soon."

"I estimate it's about four weeks till impact," Raj says, but Leonard shakes his head. 

"Before people know. Before people panic." Leonard's mother wouldn't panic. He'll tell her, he decides, if she calls him. He doesn't think about the odds, extrapolated from past instances, of that happening in the next four weeks. 

"You know," Raj says, "some people might be safe. People away from the coasts, inland. I mean they'll still have – the sun blotted out by ash and dust, and nuclear winter. But that'll take longer."

People away from the coasts, inland, Leonard thinks, and then decides that Sheldon has been right about him all along and he's an idiot and a fool. He digs out his phone from under the couch cushions and hits the speed dial. "Hello," says the voice in Galveston, Texas.

"Hi," Leonard says, "this is" – but Mary Cooper cuts him off.

"Leonard, honey, it's great you called, I just had the strangest call from Sheldon."

"Sheldon?" Leonard blinks. "Really?"

"He just called and started talkin'. All kinds of strange things, you know? Things from when he and Missy were kids, old things I don't even recall. And then I asked him if he was sick, because Jesus knows he's a good boy but he ain't ever just called his mother for a chat, you understand? And he said he wasn't. And then he talked about you. And then he went away."

"Huh." Leonard is at a momentary loss for words.

"But if you didn't know that" – Mrs. Cooper's voice sharpens – "why are you calling, Leonard? Are _you_ sick?"

Leonard thinks about it for a moment. "Thank you," he says, "for everything you've done." And before he loses his nerve: "When it happens, stick to high ground, okay? Boil the water, watch the sky to the west" – and then he hangs up.

In the evening, he and Penny sit together in a chair beneath the window, and watch the new star appear in the sky, holding each other close, so he can feel her heart beating beneath her skin.

*

Raj books a flight. "Guess we'll never get that Wonder Woman movie," he says, as he hits confirm on his laptop, and Penny laughs and Sheldon looks like he's going to say something, but doesn't. They all go with him to the airport, Howard and Leonard and Sheldon and Penny and Bernadette and Amy, all squeezed into a single car and it's a horribly unsafe tight fit, but even Sheldon doesn't quote road traffic accident statistics. At the departure gate they each hug Raj, one by one, and no one knows what or how much to say. Leonard says, "Good luck" and then, "Tell Priya…" – and Raj looks at him like he understands. 

On the way back it's still a tight squeeze; Leonard is the one who gets to have his face pressed against the window, and he's starting to see the change on the drive to Pasadena, the air of desertion. There has been no official announcement, not yet. But the streets here are emptier, maybe, than they should be for ten o'clock on a weekday morning, and too many storefronts have broken glass. Above them, the object lingers radiant in the morning sky.

Back in their apartment, everything is quiet. Penny has gone to help Bernadette and Amy buy – or loot, maybe – survival gear and space blankets and water purification tablets. Sheldon makes lunch as he always has, meticulously, using his Thursday cheese and the requisite number of tomato slices. Leonard sits on the couch just watching him for a while, before he gets up and leans on the counter, his clasped hands in front of him.

"Sheldon."

Sheldon looks up, but doesn't say anything.

 _Okay_ , Leonard thinks: _don't make this any easier for me_. "Sheldon," he says again, and it comes out more gently than he meant, "you know, it's not too late for you to get to Texas. I mean – I don't think there will be flights, unless you went right now. But there are other ways, you know?"

__Sheldon still doesn't say anything. Leonard's about to give up when Sheldon moves. He leaves the plate with the half-made sandwich on the other side of the counter and reaches out. One hand edges closer and closer until it's between both of Leonard's, inside that loose clasp._ _

__"Oh," Leonard says, looking down, "ah. Are you sure? Okay."_ _

__And his mother would probably say at this point that Leonard is the century-paradigmatic man-child; that he's been living in this apartment with his comic books and action figures in some kind of extended adolescence since he graduated college and he's now nearly thirty years old, but this is it: this is the weight of the moral choice. "All right," Leonard says, straightening up, "you're with me."_ _

__Later, while Bernadette and Amy take over the living room, stacking neat piles of blankets and canned food, Penny looks at them both and gives them a small, sweet smile.__

 _ _*__

The federal government's public announcement is in the morning just as Bernadette and Amy are loading Bernadette's car with stuff. It's all very grave and presidential. Leonard watches it on his phone while remembering the sweetness of diethyl ether in his mouth and nose, and then looks at the videos uploaded to YouTube of people crushing through the streets of the big cities on the east coast and further afield, mass panics in New York and London. He checks up on New Delhi and doesn't find anything. He puts his phone away.

__"Who puts this stuff on YouTube?" Howard asks, presumably rhetorically. "Who do they think is going to watch it?"_ _

__Leonard shakes his head and hefts the last box of canned food into the car. There might be mobs elsewhere, but too many people in Pasadena were the friends and relations of applied physicists; the city has been nearly empty for a couple of days already, people heading inland or south or just, not here. No one talks about the coming wave and how it might outrun them all, anyway. On that first night she knew the truth, Leonard asked Penny about Nebraska. "It's totally flat," she said, "the rivers are like, six inches deep, it's not…"_ _

__So they stayed, and now Bernadette is unrolling a road map of southern California with all the gas stations marked. "Guys," she says, reluctantly looking up at the looming clouds, "we should…"_ _

__"Right." Leonard steps back, away from Bernadette and Howard, from Sheldon and Amy. Howard is going to leave town with his mother, heading south and around; Bernadette and Amy are going north. The roads will soon be an impassable mass of traffic, they need to try all the routes they can. Maybe, Leonard thinks, they'll both be lucky; maybe they'll meet at the far end of each parabola, above the rushing water._ _

__Maybe they'll all meet again._ _

__"Leonard," Bernadette says, with tears in her eyes, and gives him a quick kiss on the cheek. He gets a handshake and a solemn stare from Howard. Whatever Sheldon said to her has made Amy cry and smile and laugh at the same time; she gets in the passenger seat of the car and looks imploringly at Bernadette and Penny. She hiccups and Penny laughs a little bit._ _

__The car starts and edges down the street, slowly, probably struggling from the weight of all those cans. They all watch it go for as long as they can, until it's quite out of sight.__

 _ _*__

The thing in the sky is almost as bright as the moon. Leonard draws the curtains against it and the three of them spend that night tangled together in the same bed, Sheldon curled around Leonard's feet and Penny's hands carding through his hair. As he's falling asleep he says, just thinking of it, "We could have gotten married" – and Sheldon murmurs something low and comfortable about _not fair_ and Penny smiles against Leonard's nape.

__"It's okay," she says, "I think this time we know we'll be together forever."_ _

__In the morning the sky is livid like a bruise and although the air over the city has been still for a few days now, there's a freshening breeze. Penny eats cereal out of the packet while Sheldon talks about statistical likelihoods. "Statistically, their chances of survival are low" – he's talking about Bernadette and Amy – "and statistically our chances of survival are similarly low, but…"_ _

__Penny says, "I get it. Ours are low but _different_ , great" – and Leonard tries going online (he can get things to load, but nothing updates) and then turns the dial on the radio, listening to static on longwave. He stands at the window and watches litter blow past on the street below._ _

__"How long?" Sheldon asks from behind him._ _

__"Not long."_ _

__Sheldon doesn't snap at him for his lack of precision, which is how he knows the end of the world is coming. Something flutters at the edge of his vision and Penny is suddenly warm at his side. "Look," she says, pointing at the green bird crossing the glass. "I was always gonna ask you guys sometime about why there are so many parrots in Pasadena. I thought you'd know. Just never got around to it."_ _

__"They escaped from a pet store in the 1950s," Sheldon says, from his perch by the kitchen counter, and Penny grins._ _

__"No kidding. Huh."_ _

__Leonard turns and looks at this apartment where he's spent almost his entire adult life, and listens to the sound of the water. "Sheldon," he says, "go get your shoes. Penny…"_ _

__Penny's already filling bottles with drinking water. Leonard reaches out to help and like a klaxon in the quiet, his phone rings. "Hello?"_ _

__"Leonard," says the crisp, unemotional voice on the other end, and Leonard rolls his eyes and tries not to laugh at her wonderful characteristic impeccable timing. "Leonard," his mother says again, when he doesn't immediately answer, "where are you?"_ _

__"Right where you left me," Leonard says, helping Penny one-handed, "on the fourth floor."_ _

__"Leonard," his mother says, gently now, "Pasadena is only twenty miles from the coast."_ _

__"I know, Mom," he says, matching her gentleness, "I know." And then there's nothing more he can say or do, except listen to her breathe for a few minutes longer, so he does that and then, as unobtrusively as possible, hangs up._ _

__"Leonard, come on," Penny's saying, grabbing his hand. "Sheldon, you take the bottles. I've got some Pop Tarts and blankets and other stuff. Come on!"_ _

__Leonard stuffs his phone in his pocket and heads out into the hallway, where the sound of the water is suddenly overwhelming, like a tornado behind his eyes, and it takes a breathless confusing moment before he figures it out. "The elevator shaft. It's rising upwards."_ _

__"The roof!" Sheldon yells, and they start climbing. With the boxes of stuff it takes time, flight by flight, round each corner, and then they're there, they've made it out on the roof with all that vividness in the sky above them and the waters rising below._ _

__"Oh, God," Penny says, "oh God, oh God" – and Leonard thinks that this is what his life has been, this experimental study of the great forces of the universe, and this is what he's made of it, the small intimacy of Penny holding his left hand and Sheldon holding his right._ _

__High above them, something arcs and shatters brilliant white. "I love you," Penny's saying, across him saying the same thing, "I love you, I love you" – and Sheldon isn't saying anything but he's gripping Leonard's fingers tightly enough for his fingernails to draw blood, and Leonard closes his eyes and tips his head back and opens his mouth to the fire and the rain._ _


End file.
